Sometimes I feel so unseen and like no one will ever understand who I am or how it feels. I don't know why I feel this need to be understood. I can picture a happy life with no people in it at all, just me planting flowers in a garden. I'd go to bed early every night. But to live in a world full of people who just don't get it feels woorse than being the last person on earth. At the same time, it's my duty to shield whoever I can from what happened to me. Why would I want to share that pain? Isn't that selfish? Is it just me internalizing the idea that I'm alone because no one will believe me or perhaps if I wasn't so broken I wouldn't have been hurt in the first place? I'm not sure if I'm the chicken or the egg but either way I'm the one to blame. I wish I was alone in this, but I know many others have been through something similar. It doesn't make me feel any better. I wish it would have been enough for it to only happen once. Then the sacrifice wouldn't feel so pointless.
Hey, I'm so sorry you have to feel this too. I wish people could understand me, it's the only thing that would make it easier, but I haven't met anyone in real life who does. You deserve to be able to talk about your experiences and receive genuine empathy and comprehension in return. Human beings are wired to process things socially, real isolation is one of the worst things that can happen to a social animal. I think reading and commenting on this subreddit can help a lot, though. Even if it's through the internet, just knowing that there are people out there who get it helps immensely.
THIS makes so much sense. If humans are social animals and process things as a group, a person who was cut off and isolated from society from a young age could experience some sort of atrophy of that part that reaches out or receives comfort. Even when they have a safe support structure later on in life. Like always being told to not talk about things as a child has woven talking about things with intense shame. And shame is so isolating in and of itself.